China: Plague Isolates Parts of City

By REUTERS

July 22, 2014

China has sealed off parts of its northwestern city of Yumen after a resident died of bubonic plague last week, the state news media reported on Tuesday. A 38-year-old victim was infected by a marmot, a wild rodent, and died on July 16. Several districts of the city of about 100,000 people in Gansu Province were turned into special quarantine zones, the Xinhua news agency said. It said 151 people who had come into direct contact with the victim were also quarantined. None have so far shown signs of infection, Xinhua said. The plague is a bacterial disease spread by the fleas of wild rodents.